But of course, something screws up, as far as I can tell it saved in a temporary directory instead of where I wanted it to, and then it got wiped. I’ve gone from having nothing left to do but hand it in to being exactly where I was last night.
Tomorrow’s gonna fucking SUCK now.
Having handed in an essay myself roughly an hour and a half ago, I feel your pain. Seriously, man.
You weren’t working in a copy that was an attachment to an email message by any chance, were you?
That’s exactly what happened, but I only found that out after I started re-doing it and diligently saving. So I know now how I lost my essay but I’m still up shit creek, or at least redo-essay creek.
Well then. It appears you lost your work through your own faulty procedures - save early; save often. And how the hell did you not know you were originally editing a file attached to an e-mail?
It’s very common. I’ve had to explain the same thing to a number of clients.
Sorry! I completely forgot I posted to this thread.
Try the following:
Open another email message that has a Word file as an attachment. Open the file and select Save As… from the File menu in Word.
You’ll be prompted to save the file in a temporary location. Instead of saving the file, scroll through the list of previously saved documents there, changing the view to the Details view and noting the date/time stamp of the files. If you find your file there, and you should if you were clicking save all along AND closed and saved it, right click it, select Open or Open With --> Microsoft Word for Windows. This may take a bit, but your doc should open in a new window.
Please note before dispensing such advice, I usually know the version of the OS, email client, Word and so forth, but no harm can come of what I’ve posted.
Also, select Save As… from within the document you’re currently working and save it to, say, your desktop or the My Documents folder.
If you’re running XP (and possibly in 2000, not as familiar) the temporary files are usually saved in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\file where user = your userid and file is the name of a file folder contaning the documents that are saved. Do you know if the computer creates an automatic backup? If that is the case then it’s likely there’s a backup copy. When you say it got wiped, what do you mean, exactly? You went in to your temporary files and deleted all the files there?
Word attachments to email messages do not get saved to C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files, as far as I know. They are saved to the OLK folder(s) until the user selects Save As… from the File menu from within Word.
Well, yes. On our computers the OLK folders are located in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLKE. That’s where word document attachments are saved and backed up to when we automatically click save. Not sure where they are saved under different versions of Windows, though, we use XP
Of course, you’re right, XJETGIRLX. I didn’t thoroughly read your email and didn’t get you were completing the path for me.
Mea culpa.
Thanks for your help JuanitaTech and XJETGIRLX but unfortunately that’s something I’d already figured out… after I saved over the temp file with my quick and dirty attempt at retyping what I’d spent the evening doing. Incidentally, on my comp they’re in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.ie5. Does it strike anyone else as odd that the temp files are in a directory that is invisible, even when I’ve got “show hidden files” checked?
As someone who is the National Champion of the last-minute effort assignment brigade, I’m feeling your pain. Ouch !
Hope the second version was better, simply because you now know the material thoroughly from doing it twice.